Statements contradict Selepak's claim of affair with Mrs. Berels

A man accused of leading his fiancee in a killing spree across eastern Michigan in February told police about an illicit relationship with one of the victims -- but that and other parts of his story lack corroboration, according to other statements obtained by The Macomb Daily.

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Patrick Alan Selepak, 27, in an audiotaped confession to investigators, claimed he had a romantic relationship with the married Melissa Rae Berels several months before he and co-defendant Samantha Jean Bachynski allegedly killed her and her husband.

"She's tell(ing) me one day she's going to leave her husband and we were going to get together, and the next it's like, you know, I don't know what was going on," Selepak told police in an interview shortly after his arrest in late February.

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But in the same account where he describes becoming Mrs. Berels' lover, he also claimed that she would smuggle boxes of alcoholic beverages out of the store for him until the management realized some of its inventory was missing and cracked down on employees -- a situation the store manager says never happened.

"Nothing like that ever occurred involving her (Berels) and him (Selepak) while I've been here," said Mark Gutzeit, manager of VG's Food Center in New Baltimore where Mrs. Berels worked.

"And if the police became aware of a crime occurring here they would have contacted us about it. I never heard from them about this."

A Port Huron-based defense attorney for Bachynski has indicated these portions of the taped confessions by both defendants, including the account of an affair, seem to suggest that the intent to kill came from Selepak alone and Bachynski did little or nothing to deserve sharing a murder indictment with him.

Randall Juip, a cousin to Scott Berels and spokesman for the victims' families in the New Baltimore slaying, said that is just one of several assertions in Selepak's account that seem to be unfounded.

"Every time we've tried to corroborate a fact in his story, we couldn't or it wasn't true," Juip said. "We think it's disgusting that he would make up a story like this. It's all lies told by a quadruple murderer."

Selepak and co-defendant Bachynski face more than 30 felony charges including murder, kidnapping, carjacking, identity theft, home invasion and other crimes in the brutal slayings of the Berelses in New Baltimore and a Vienna Township man in Genesee who apparently learned they were fugitives several days later.

Juip's reference to Selepak as a "quadruple" killer, he explained, stems from the death of the Berelses' unborn child since she was 10 weeks pregnant at the time.

"They also killed a baby. People forget that," Juip said.

According to documents obtained by The Macomb Daily through the Freedom of Information Act, Selepak claims he met Mrs. Berels for the first time at VG's last summer, shortly after his release from prison on parole, while he was residing with and dating Sarah Fisher in Chesterfield Township.

He also claims he went to visit the Berelses' home on Lempke Street in New Baltimore on the day of the killings only to "hang out with" Melissa because his relationship with Bachynski had been strained in recent days and he needed a place to stay where his parole officer couldn't find him.

But when he arrived at the empty house and waited inside, Mr. Berels allegedly came home first and Selepak's plans began to go awry. He claims the husband charged at him until Selepak brandished a gun he'd been carrying, and while he had Scott Berels at gunpoint he allegedly began opening up about the former affair.

"I didn't want to like, break up, you know what's going on here (the Berelses' marriage) but I was like I wonder if she still feels the same or if she's happy here," Selepak recounted telling Mr. Berels. "And, uh, he's like 'Well, she's happy.' I said, 'Okay, that's good.'"

But Selepak also told police that, while he was in a relationship with Sarah Fisher and was also illicitly seeing Mrs. Berels last summer, he and Fisher would wait behind the store where she worked and Mrs. Berels "was boxing up (liquor) and sending them out the back door to us" until "she ... got word from the boss."

But Gutzeit said he'd never had such a word with Berels.

"She was always a good girl," he said.

Juip and others have also said Mrs. Berels was actively involved in various Christian ministry efforts through her local church and would not have considered anything like adultery or the theft of alcohol.

But in terms of corroboration, Selepak's and Bachynski's statements both seem to indicate the latter never knew a homicide was coming until it was already under way.

"Her (Mrs. Berels') lips were completely blue and her face was just turning this odd purple color. And he (Selepak) laid her down on the floor ... and he (was) holding the gun in his hand and he's pointing it at me and he said 'you need to finish that (killing Mrs. Berels)," Bachynski recounted to police.

According to Bachynski, Selepak had choked the expectant mother into unconsciousness and then told his fiancee to "finish" the job, which she did half-heartedly until he affixed a bag around her face and Bachynski held it in place.

"(That's) because the entire time when I just had my hands on her I wasn't squeezing her that hard. I didn't want to. I didn't wanna be doing that," she said.